Fortune 5: The biggest organized crime groups in the world

FORBES MAGAZINE

Cyber
crime is grabbing the headlines these days, but the largest criminal gangs are
still making most of their money from drugs, sex, and extortion.

It’s
tough to go even a few months without seeing the effects of organized crime on
the economy and everyday life. The most salient example these days is the rash
of thefts of credit card data from big-name retail chains like Home Depot and
Target.

While
these threats are headline-grabbing and particularly frightening because
e-commerce is a relatively new phenomenon and businesses and consumers aren’t
totally sure how to protect themselves from hackers, it’s still a drop in the
bucket in terms of overall organized crime earnings.

A
2013 survey from Javelin Strategy and Research estimates that the annual total
loss to Americans due to identity theft was roughly $20 billion. But much of
those costs comes from efforts to prevent identity theft or recover from its
effects, rather than what thieves earn from their crimes. Compare that to
estimates of pure revenue from other forms of organized crime like the drug
trade and human trafficking: the Organization of American States estimates that
the revenue for cocaine sales in the U.S. has reached $34 billion annually.
When you add the market for other illicit drugs and revenue generators like
human trafficking and extortion, it becomes clear that organized crime is still
making most of its money from its legacy businesses, despite the fact that
criminals are always looking for new ways to make a buck.

So,
who are the biggest organized crime gangs around the world and how do they make
their money? Organized crime revenues are very difficult to estimate, as
criminals often spend a significant amount of time trying to hide what they
make. Also, “organized crime” is a loosely defined concept. Anything from a
vast drug smuggling ring to a handful of car thieves can be classified as
organized crime groups, and the cohesiveness of organized crime organizations around
the world varies widely. Some groups, like Japan’s Yakuza, are highly organized
and hierarchical, allowing economists and crime fighters in Japan to attribute
much higher revenue totals to Yakuza groups than others around the world. Here
are the top five criminal gangs, ranked by revenue estimates:

1.
Yamaguchi Guri—Revenue: $80 billion

The
largest known gang in the world is called the Yamaguchi Guri, one of several
groups collectively referred to in Japan as “Yakuza,” a term that is roughly
equivalent to the American use of “mafia.” The Yamaguchi Guri make more money
from drug trafficking than any other source, according to Hiromitsu Suganuma,
Japan’s former national police chief. The next two leading sources of revenue
are gambling and extortion, followed closely by “dispute resolution.”

The
Yakuza date back hundreds of years, and according to Dennis McCarthy, author of
An Economic History of Organized Crime, Yakuza groups are among the most
centralized in the world. While other East Asian gangs like Chinese Triads,
which are a loose conglomeration of criminals bonded together mostly by
familial relations, Yakuza are bound together by “elaborate hierarchies,” and
members, once initiated, must subvert all other allegiances in favor of the
Yakuza. Even with the Japanese government cracking down on Yakuza in recent
years, this centralized structure has made it easy to attribute a massive
amount of revenue to this single gang.

2.
Solntsevskaya Bratva—Revenue: $8.5 billion

Russian
mafia groups sit on the other side of the organizational spectrum from Yakuza.
Their structure, according to Frederico Varese, a professor of criminology at
the University of Oxford and an expert on international organized crime, is
highly decentralized. The group is composed of 10 separate quasi-autonomous
“brigades” that operate more or less independently of each other. The group
does pool its resources, however, and the money is overseen by a 12-person
council that “meets regularly in different parts of the world, often disguising
their meetings as festive occasions,” Varesi says.

It’s
estimated that the group claims upwards of 9,000 members, and that it’s bread
and butter is the drug trade and human trafficking. Russian organized crime in
general is heavily involved in the heroin trade that originates in Afghanistan:
it’s estimated that Russia consumes about 12% of the world’s heroin, while it
contains just 0.5% of the world’s population.

3.
Camorra—Revenue: $4.9 billion

While
the Italian-American mafia has been severely weakened in recent decades by law
enforcement, the Italian mafia in the old country is still running strong.
Despite years of efforts from citizens, journalists, and government officials,
the local governments in Italy remain linked to and protective of various mafia
groups, to the point where a 2013 study from the Università Cattolica and the
Joint research Centre on Transnational Crime estimated that mafia activities
generate revenue of $33 billion dollars, mostly divided among Italy’s four
major mafia gangs.

Camorra
is the most successful of these groups, raking in an estimated $4.9 billion per
year on everything from “sexual exploitation, firearms trafficking, drugs,
counterfeiting, gambling … usury and extortion,” according to the report. And
Camorra has been at it a long time. Based in Naples, the group’s history dates
back to the 19th century, when it was formed initially as a prison gang. As
members were released, the group flourished during the bloody political
struggles in Italy during the 1800s by offering protection services and as a
force for political organization among Italy’s poor.

4.
‘Ndrangheta—Revenue: $4.5 billion

Based
in the Calabria region of Italy, the ‘Ndarangheta is the country’s second
largest mafia group by revenue. While it is involved in many of the same
illicit activities as Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta has made its name for itself by
building international ties with South American cocaine dealers, and it
controls much of the transatlantic drug market that feeds Europe. It has also
been expanding its operations in the U.S. and has helped prop up the Gambino
and Bonnano crime families in New York. In February, Italian and American
police forces arrested dozens of ‘Ndrangheta and Gambino family members and
charged them with crimes related to the transatlantic drug trade.

5.
Sinaloa Cartel—Revenue $3 billion

Sianola
is Mexico’s largest drug cartel, one of several gangs that has been terrorizing
the Mexican population as it serves as the middleman between South American
producers of illegal drugs and an unquenchable American market. The White House
Office of Drug Control Policy estimates that Americans spend $100 billion on
illegal drugs each year, and the RAND Corporation says that about $6.5 billion
of that reaches Mexican cartels. With an estimated 60% market share, Sinola
cartel is raking in approximately $3 billion per year.

Despite
the fact that Sinaloa’s leader was arrested February, the cartel seems to have
avoided the sort of bloody—and costly—succession battle that has plagued some
groups when a leader is taken out of commission.